Video Store Owners In Middle Of Obscenity Issue

January 12, 1987|By JONATHAN SUSSKIND, Staff Writer

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Last Monday afternoon, less than an hour after police arrested a Major Video store clerk on a charge of selling an obscene videotape, an officer in uniform walked into the store at 1001 State Road 84.

He was unaware that several of his colleagues had been in the store earlier on a different mission. He was there to return five rented tapes: three general entertainment and two adult, X-rated videos -- Swedish Erotica and Body Shop.

Scenes like that reinforce the contention by video outlet owners that it`s wrong for authorities to hassle them for selling and renting movies that a wide section of the public wants.

Police reply that they have no choice but to enforce the Florida law that forbids the sale of obscene materials, no matter where.

The tapes that the officer returned -- he asked that his name not be used for fear of embarrassment and retribution from his superiors -- are not among the three that have been adjudged obscene.

The Orgy Machine, Loose Latue and Awesome crossed that line between sexuality for art`s sake and for ``prurient interest,`` according to the two Broward Circuit judges who issued orders of probable cause for obscenity in December.

With the exception of Major Video, video stores in Fort Lauderdale have closed their adult tape sections and pulled thousands of X-rated and even some lesser-rated movies from their shelves.

Although that has hurt their business, store owners claim they can`t take the risk that police will use even general-release films such as Splash and Risky Business to make a case for pornography, as has been done in other states and cities.

``I don`t know which ones are and which ones aren`t obscene,`` said Video Boulevard owner George Carey.

``It`s putting them in an absolutely perplexing quandary,`` said Norman Kent, lawyer for three store owners who have sued police to block arrests and force officials to provide a list of what films might be obscene.

Vice squad detectives started their investigations of the video outlets in late November, following efforts in recent years that closed most adult bookstores in the city.

``They were finding some of the very same films that were in the adult bookstores were in the video stores,`` said Police Spokesman Ott Cefkin. ``If they were obscene in the adult bookstores, it doesn`t make them any less obscene if they were in the mom and pop video stores.``

Major Video officials said they were removing The Orgy Machine from store shelves when the arrest occurred.

The Major Video store clerk is back at her job, but she and other employees of Major Video from executives on down have been told not to speak to reporters, said Bruce Randall, the Fort Lauderdale lawyer who represents her and the company.

Like Kent, Randall is a First Amendment attorney who has represented adult bookstores and, in 1985, unsuccessfully went to court on behalf of video stores in Margate, where X-rated movies have been banned.

But the lawyers are fighting different battles in different styles.

Kent lost the first round in his case in December, when Circuit Judge M. Daniel Futch refused to block arrests or make police give the video stores a list of the obscene movies they were after. Futch, in fact, commended the city for vigorously enforcing the obscenity law.

Before the ink on Futch`s signature was dry, Kent had an appeal filed with the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach. He is still waiting for a hearing.

Kent says he is aching to go to the Florida Supreme Court on the case, to test a ruling by that court that he says means police must tell store owners which films might violate the obscenity law.

While Kent`s case will be built on what he called ``due process`` issues, Randall`s will be on constitutional and privacy-rights issues.

Randall said an obscenity case involving a videotape is a special instance because a tape ``is an innocuous item`` until it is taken home to be played, unlike a book or magazine.

``The state has no right`` to intrude on the viewer`s privacy, said Randall.

He and Kent agree on one topic: they want police to give them copies of any judicial findings of obscenity so that they can pull tapes off the market and comply with the law.

Major Video is keeping its adult tapes available because it considers an act of removal, without an obscenity finding, to be ``prior restraint,`` a First Amendment issue, Randall said.

Unlike Kent, who keeps in touch with media about the case and allows his clients to talk to reporters, Randall said he and Major Video ``won`t be calling any press conferences.``

Kent, confident of a court victory, said that garnering public opinion for his side is important.

``When people start realizing that their neighbors are getting arrested for violation of the obscenity law, they`ll realize that they passed a bad law,`` he said.

So far, only the owners of four stores are involved in the suit Kent filed -- Video Biz, Movie Library and Ultimate Video. Owners of two other independent stores said they thought about joining but are fearful of legal expenses.

Meanwhile, business is declining for those independents.

``People are bypassing us to go to (stores in) Pompano (Beach) and Oakland Park,`` said Carey of Video Boulevard. ``They`d rather get their family entertainment and adult entertainment in one place.``

The officer who returned the five tapes to Major Video last Monday defended his department`s actions.

``I guess it has to be done,`` the officer said. ``You see (obscenity) spreading into other things, with children and all that. You`ve got to draw the line somewhere.``